IJCAI-99 Workshop on Agent Communication Languages



IJCAI-99 Workshop
on
Agent Communication Languages
1 August 1999, Stockholm

http://wwwis.win.tue.nl/acl99/

Introduction | Topics | Preliminary program | Program Committee | Submissions | Registration | Proceedings | Important Dates | Organizing Committee

Introduction

In recent years the interest in multi-agent systems (MAS) has grown tremendously. The applications of MAS ranges from digital libraries through cooperative engineering to electronic commerce. All these applications have one thing in common. The agents operating within these systems have to communicate. A first attempt to come to a standardised agent communication language (ACL) came forth from the DARPA knowledge sharing project and produced KQML. Up till now KQML is the only ACL that is implemented and (widely) used (at least in the academic world). More recently another effort to come to a standard ACL has started through the FIPA initiative.

Although both initiatives base their messages on the theory of speech acts the outcome is quite different. The main reason for this difference is the lack of consensus on the semantics of the communication between agents. Although some work has been done on the semantics of individual speech acts, little is known about the semantics of conversations and the relations between speech acts and the conversations of which they form a part.

Another point that deserves attention are the social aspects in multi-agent systems and their relation to communications between agents.

Also there is relatively little experience with all types of practical considerations in the use of ACL's. E.g. How do agents "understand" messages from agents that use a different ontology? Or how do agents know which communication protocol to use?


Topics

The main theme of this first international workshop on agent communication languages will be: "Semantics and pragmatics of Agent Communication Languages: From Speech Acts to Conversations". Within this general theme we aim to bring together researchers to discuss the following topics:

Preliminary program

The workshop will be held on Sunday, August 1, 1999. Starting at 9:00 and finishing at 18:00. Each speaker will get 20 minutes for presentation, which gives enough time for discussion. A
detailed program plus abstracts of the papers is now available.

Program Committee


Submissions

Submission Procedure:
Authors of accepted papers should submit a full paper electronically either in LaTeX or Word format. (It should be possible to add page numbers to the file later on!!).
The paper should be send to:

dignum@win.tue.nl

Submission Format:
The first page of revised papers should include: title, author names, affiliations, postal addresses, electronic mail addresses, telephone and fax numbers for all authors. (This does not have to be a separate page!) Submissions should not exceed 15 pages (if the paper exceeds this number of pages please contact dignum@win.tue.nl) and should print on 8.5" x 11" or A4 paper with at least 1 inch margins on all sides. Although we do not have any firm constraints on letter types we prefer articles to be written in Times (Roman) in 10 or 11pt.


Registration

Registration for the workshop is possible for all participants of the IJCAI-99 conference. However, the number of participants is limited to a maximum of 40 persons.
Authors of (accepted) papers are given priority.

Proceedings

A publication of a book on agent communication is planned based on selected articles from the workshop. The book will be combining articles from our workshop and from the workshop on
agent conversation policies.

Important Dates

Submission deadline:15 March 1999
Notification of acceptance: 30 April 1999
Camera ready copy 24 May 1999
author registration due: 31 May 1999
Workshop: 1 August 1999

Organizing Committee

F. Dignum (primary contact)
Eindhoven University of Technology
Mathematics & Computing Science
P O Box 513
5600 MB Eindhoven
The Netherlands
tel +31-40-2473705
fax +31-40-2463992
email dignum@win.tue.nl
B. Chaib-draa (Laval University, Canada)
Universite Laval
Departement d'informatique
Pavillon Adrien-Pouliot
Quebec,
Canada G1K 7P4
tel +1-418-656-2131 #3226
fax +1-418-656-2324
email chaib@ift.ulaval.ca
H. Weigand
Tilburg University,
Infolab,
P.O.Box 90153,
5000 LE Tilburg
The Netherlands
tel +31-13-4662806
fax +31 13 4663069
email H.Weigand@kub.nl


IJCAI homepage
IJCAI workshop program
© Infolab, PO Box 90153, NL-5000 LE TILBURG, The Netherlands
Telephone +31 13 466 3020, Facsimile +31 13 466 3069
For remarks and questions, mail to F. Dignum & B. Chaib-draa & H. Weigand.